MEN:  Kaan Tayla, Senior, Virginia Tech

CO-WOMEN:  Stephanie England, Senior, Georgia Tech – and – Claire Crippen, Freshman, Virginia

Tayla, a native of Ankara, Turkey, won a pair of individual events and anchored two winning relay teams to help Virginia Tech pull off a thrilling 155-145 victory at NC State. The senior started off the day as the anchor of the first-place 200 medley relay squad that finished .70 seconds ahead of NC State with a time of 1:32.17. He then followed that up, winning two individual events in the 50 and 100 freestyle. With NC State owning a 143-140 edge heading into the final event, Tayla anchored the 400 freestyle relay team that included Scott Beard, Ian deToll and Jake Bova. In the final leg of an already tight race, Tayla broke away and touched in at 3:03.14 to finish three seconds ahead of NC State for Tech’s first league win.

A senior from Titusville, Fla., England notched two individual wins during two days of competition at the LSU Invitational. Against LSU and Auburn, two of the top diving programs in the country, England claimed a pair of first-place finishes as she won the three-meter with 309.20 points and the platform with 238.25. Her performance in the three-meter is the top ACC mark this year, while her platform mark ranks second.

Crippen, who hails from Conshohocken, Pa., posted a trio of NCAA “B” cuts and one NCAA “A” mark as 15th-ranked Virginia finished runner-up to No. 1 Georgia at the Bulldogs’ three-day invitational. The freshman turned in a first-place showing in the 400 individual medley with an NCAA “A” time of 4:11.87, good for the fastest mark in the league this season and third fastest all-time. She also placed second in the 200 IM with an NCAA “B” time of 2:01.21, which ranks at the top of the ACC this year. Crippen also registered NCAA “B” times in the 200 butterfly (1:59.34) and 1650 freestyle (16:35.33) events.